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Publication date:
2019

Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database

Citation for published version (APA):
Olthof, S. (2019). Small-sided games in youth soccer: performance and behavior compared to the official
match. [Groningen]: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. https://doi.org/10.33612/diss.96266862

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Research presented in this thesis has been conducted at the Center of Human Movement Sciences, part of
the University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, the Netherlands and the youth academies
of FC Groningen, PSV and Vitesse.

PhD training was facilitated by the research institute School of Health Research (SHARE), part of the Graduate
School of Medical Sciences Groningen

Printing of this thesis was financially supported by the University of Groningen, University Medical Center
Groningen, research institute School of Health Research, Lode Holding BV, ProCare BV and Inmotio Object
Tracking BV.

There is this game - played all over the world - called soccer. We play soccer in matches
and we learn, improve, and refine soccer in training. Official regulations and playing
rules define a match. In match-play, it is about performing and winning. The training
is designed to emphasize and mimic specific situations of the match. In training, the
focus is on learning. This thesis will focus on the relation between the match and
training: can we replicate match behavior in training?

Football is a simple game: twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes […].

Gary Lineker - 1990

Official soccer match

Twenty-two players, representing two opposing teams, play soccer on a 105 x 68 m
pitch with a ball, regulated by playing rules. This combination is specific for soccer
and shapes the behavior of players during an official match (Glazier & Robins, 2013;
Newell, 1986). A logical purpose of soccer is to win the match by scoring more goals
than the opponent does. Players employ a combination of their physical, technical, and
tactical capacities to reach this goal (Jones & Drust, 2007). However, there is a conflict
in the relation between players present on the pitch: ball possession entitles players
to attack and score a goal, but opponent players will make every effort to prevent
that. This creates cooperation of players within a team and competition between
players of opponent teams (Grehaigne, Bouthier, & David, 1997; McGarry, Anderson,
Wallace, Hughes, & Franks, 2002). Moreover, teams try to score on different sides of the
pitch. This oppositional relationship produces goal-directed behavior that goes back
and forth in a predominantly goal-to-goal direction of the pitch (Frencken, Lemmink,
Delleman, & Visscher, 2011; Grehaigne et al., 1997; McGarry et al., 2002).

A main objective in soccer science is to capture this goal-directed behavior.
In performance analysis, researchers quantify a player’s physical load, technical
skills, and tactical decision-making in order to observe a player’s activities in the real
context of the match, instead of using field tests or laboratory experiments. Time-
motion analysis is used to quantify physical load and movement activity patterns, like
the distance covered, high intensity activities, and sprints. With video analysis, both
technical and tactical skills can be observed. Technical skills are mostly determined by
quantifying (successful or direction of) actions on the ball (Hughes & Bartlett, 2002; Vilar,
Araújo, Davids, & Button, 2012), where tactical skills are mostly related to qualitative
observations of decision-making (van Maarseveen, Oudejans, & Savelsbergh, 2017). At
this point it is important to note that soccer players are considered as the performers

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of the game (Glazier & Robins, 2013). In order to use consistent terminology throughout
the thesis, a player’s individual contribution to the game (in the physical, technical and
tactical domain) will be called ‘performance’. This is a commonly used term in soccer
science literature, along with other terms like capacity, skill, demand, performance
outcome, outcome of behavior, etc.

Thus far, performance analysis literature mainly gave insight into a player’s
individual soccer performance. However, soccer is by definition a team sport with
an intermittent character where teams alternately attack and defend. Moreover, it is
characterized by its (temporary) interactions between players, formation of sub-groups,
and unpredictability. Rather than a limited focus on only individual performance, soccer
science can benefit from a more comprehensive understanding of soccer performance,
including analysis on a team level (Vilar et al., 2012). An ecological approach, such as
the dynamical system theory, enables capturing and identifying collective behavior
(Grehaigne et al., 1997; Seifert, Araújo, Komar, & Davids, 2017). A player’s interaction with
team members, opponents, and the environment define collective behavior (Grehaigne
et al., 1997; McGarry et al., 2002; Seifert et al., 2017; Vilar et al., 2012). Such an ecological
approach enables researchers to model and understand how players choose position
and how teams organize and coordinate with respect to their opponent. In soccer
science literature, collective behavior is also described as team tactical behavior. In
this soccer context is team tactical behavior defined as the individual and collective
actions of a team to best employ player skills in order to contribute to the team’s goal
of attacking and defending by goal scoring or preventing goals (Carling, Williams, &
Reilly, 2005).

Collective behavior can be described as the dynamic relation at individual
and team level, displayed as player-player (or dyadic), intra-team, and inter-team
coordination. Dyadic coordination reflects the player’s interaction with a team member
or opponent player and is often displayed as the distance between two players
(Bourbousson, Sève, & McGarry, 2010a; Gonçalves et al., 2017; McGarry et al., 2002; Vilar
et al., 2014). Intra-team and inter-team coordination reflect the cooperation within a
team or competition between t